In Depth: America's Worst Bang For The Buck Cities

To find where your money doesn't go as far as other spots, we began by looking at projected job growth through 2012 in the 40 largest U.S. Census-defined metropolitan areas of the country with data from Moody's Economy.com. We then calculated the ratios between each city's median house price and median household income, using the latest U.S. Census figures and data from the National Association of Realtors. Next, we compared median income with Moody's cost of living index. Job growth figures and the ratio of cost of living to income were more heavily weighted to ensure the list showed value, not just cities that are cheap.

Final factors included the average gas price in each city on a given day in October as collected by AAA, and year-over-year inflation growth as calculated by Moody's and Forbes.com.